Better Workplace Health For Small Businesses

Small Biz Matters – a half hour program each week where you can work ON your business rather than IN it.
with Alexi Boyd from Boyd Office Management Services
Date: 29 August 2017

Health and wellbeing of ourselves and our employees is an aspect of running a small business which is often left last on the list. We spend more time at our desk sometimes than we do with our families and never for a moment think about the long term health implications. But the stats tell us we should, for the purposes of productivity, staff retention and having just a great place to work make this a number one priority.

So in the interest of thinking of the Health and Wellbeing of our listeners today we’re creating Better Workplace Health for Small Business and Improving the health & well-being of yourself and your employees in the office environment.  We’re focusing today on the concept of Move well, Think well and Eat well.

Welcome to the show, wellness experts, Dr Louis and Dr Engrid.

Topics we’ll be covering:

• Broadly can you guys explain the concept of Move well, Think well and Eat well and why it’s important for small business owners to be conscious of this concept for themselves and their team(louis leads)?
• As a small business owner, there is a heavy reliance on you. If you are not well physically and mentally your business suffers. There are no real off days, always constantly something to work on. So forgetting, not priorities time to invest in your health is common problem.
• That may create an environment where the workplace is unhealthy, affecting your employees.
• Loss of health is a key contributor to loss of productivity, can ultimately affect the health of your business.
• The concept of move well, think well eat well is that; Health is like a puzzle - there are many different pieces, that connect with each other to form a bigger picture.
• Health is more than just feeling and looking great, it’s about optimal function of the whole body, physically, mentally and socially. The choices you make on a day to day basis either takes you towards or away from health.
• Encouraging people to be proactive about their health and not waiting for problems to arise. Focusing on making choices that elevate their health, prevention is key. Instead of this idea of “sacrificing health in order to accumulate and make money and then sacrificing money to recuperate health.” -Dalai Lama

Move well (engrid leads):

• Our current lifestyles, involve prolonged extended periods of sitting. Even more so with technology.
• Injecting movement into your day, try not to sit for more than 40 mins
• Stand to work, sit to rest; this aid breathing & working
• standing desks are great - why?, desk setup and posture.
• But for those that don’t, some tips on proper ergonomics.
• Top of the screen should be at eye level, feet flat on floor, no crossing the legs
•       Sit yourself right in the chair first – utilise the back of the chair, bum back in the corner of the chair.
• be conscious and listen to your body if it tells you that something is uncomfortable
• Stand & walk meetings
• There’s an app from Chiropractor’s Association of Australia (CAA) which prompts you to get up and move & has pop up posture reminders (straighten up App)
• Sitright.com.au
• Straighten Up Australia for simple exercises
• Same principles apply when you are working from home!

Think well (louis leads):

• How society runs today, go go go mentality, everything is easily accessible (esp. Social media), constantly engaged, constantly stimulated.
• This has an impact on our bodies as we aren’t designed to function like that all the time.
• There is a whole branch of the NS that is dedicated to rest and digest, (down time) we should be in that state majority of the time.
• Currently society has us in this overstimulated/stressed state, causing us to be driven into a reactive mode/behaviour, constantly reacting to things which then means you aren’t being proactive.
• Stress is good for us, it can makes us clear our desk, set deadlines, be productive.
• How much stress and where stress falls in your day is important, but it can leads us to become reactive and not proactive with your business and your health.
• It’s easy for small business owners to wake up first thing in the morning,  have a cup of coffee and open your laptop and before you know it you’re addressing e-mails 6:30 in the morning and you haven’t even arrived at the office yet.
• The focus should be to break this cycle, this behaviour by introducing small steps in your routine that will help serve you to be proactive and increase productivity.
• Starting your day with structure, perhaps morning routine help get you into a productive mode.
• Gratitude mindset, start your day with 3 things you are grateful for. Studies indicate that beginning your day with gratitude can rewire your brain to have a more positive outlook on life.
• 5-10 minute meditation (Smiling mind app - guided meditation)
• Breathing exercises – it’s important for oxygenating your muscular tissues every so often and we forget that when we’re working.
• Don’t look at your phone and/or address e-mails until you’ve left the house.

Eat well (engrid leads):

• Lots of information about nutrition, diets, things you should or shouldn’t (most aren’t not sustainable)
• Stick to the basics
• Micro-nutrients, macro-nutrients
• If it grows from a plant (good), if comes from plant (not good)
• What you have probably noticed when you are stressed you often make poor choices because:
• Our response to stress – the overwhelm will create a pattern where you react (rather than proactive) , instant gratification.
• Those foods often start with a C and ends with an E  !! cookies/carbohydrates/cake/chocolate

What is it that we commonly encounter as wellness experts (louis leads)

What we commonly see in practice comes back to problems associated with how people are dealing and coping with stresses in their life.

Bear in mind everyone is different and these symptoms may be different for you. We often see with people who are overstressed or constantly in a stressed state have;

• Poor posture – your spine and nervous system is not supposed in this position (SD)
• Headaches
• Neck pain / back pain
• Irritable
• Reduction in concentration and memory.

Remember the pain is your body to trying to communicate to you to and to bring your attention to something but is not necessarily the source of the problem.

BUT not all is lost - what can you do to reverse these worsening problems? (engrid leads)

Our professional training is that we are Chiropractors, when we say that most people will immediately think of neck and back pain. Professionally we are good at helping with those problems.

Louis and I we are at Complete Health Chiropractic in Chatswood and we are passionate about:

• Helping improve the health of families of all generations by ensuring their body’s isn’t in this constant stressed, fight and flight state and that it’s functioning properly. And also showing them ways to being proactive about their health, small simple steps that over time hopefully can put them on a better path to health.
• What we don’t do is leave them in being reactive state and mode, being unproductive.
• Take the time to review your morning routine, and is it serving you in a proactive, positive manner.
• See what small steps that were discussed today that is easy for you and your team to incorporate. We have a client that started an “hour-aerobics” at their workplace, where they all get up and move for 5 minutes, every 40 minutes.
• Get yourself checked.
• Find out how is your body dealing with stress in your body, function of your nervous system. Find out the cause.
• Investing in yourself.
• Functional tests to help you determine if now is a good time to see a chiropractor
• Search for a chiro on the professional association website.

Being a better employer (louis leads)

• Taking care of yourself.
• Creating a healthier environment and encouraging healthy behaviour and routines.
• Walking/Standing meetings
• Stand up to take a phone call
• Use earpieces when talking on the phone
• Encourage drinking water from the tap – hydration & the formula for how many glasses is right for you differs for everyone!
• Regular breaks – we used to accept the smoko to let’s encourage the Healtho!
• Inviting health professionals to impart knowledge to your employees on better health
• Consider this an option for productivity workshops & health and well being of your employees (ultimately saving you in the long run)
• This is something we do regularly at CHC is provide workplace talks to educate and encourage healthier workplace environments.

To find out more go to their website: www.completehealthchiro.com.au